Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Give me a couple blog entries to start thinking of poetic, thought provoking titles please?...It's been a long summer.

When first looked at, The Tempest does not seem to have a "normal" theme of justice. Although Trinculo and Stefano are greedy, treasonous, and abusive to Caliban, and Antonio is far from a good brother, none of them receive their ultimate comeuppances come the end of the play. The root of this phenomenon is Prospero, kind hearted to a fault, who gains his revenge by twisting around the inner workings of the seditionists' minds through his own spells and requests to his fairy slave, Ariel. Although Prospero does get his dukedom back at the end of the play, Alonso does not willingly give it to him. In fact, Prospero simply states "I do forgive thy rankest fault, all of them, and require, My dukedom of thee, which perforce, I know, Thou must restore" (V.i.133-1135). No mention of Alsono ever actually agreeing to this appears, and neither Alonso nor Trinculo and Stefano are particularly repentant for their actions. Prospero allows them to foster this attitude, as once he makes this proclamation to Alonso, and pronounces Trinculo and Stefano as alcoholic failures, the play speeds to a hasty finish with Prospero weaving his life story in the ending monologue. This behavior seems overall to be uncharacteristic of Prospero, because he gave Ferdinand such a difficult time in trying to court Miranda.

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